Available thesis topics

Students interested in topics related to usable security and privacy have the opportunity to do their master theses / bachelor theses / practical research project (Einzelpraktikum) at the Research Institute CODE (Bundeswehr University Munich). More information on the research group on Usable Security and Privacy Group can be found on our website.

We offer a large variety of topics, including but not limited to:

• Behavioral Biometrics (Ansprechpartner: Lukas Mecke)
• Usable Security in Smart Homes (Ansprechpartner: Sarah Prange)
• Novel Security Mechanisms based on Gaze (Ansprechpartner: Yasmeen Abdrabou)
• Novel Blockchain User Interfaces (Ansprechpartner: Michael Froehlich)
• Physiologicacl Security (Ansprechpartner: Mariam Hassib)
• Social Engineering
• Virtual Reality as Research Methodology (Ansprechpartner: Rivu Radiah)

A list of current topics is available on our website.

If you are interested in working with us, please get in touch with the respective contact person or send an email to Dr. Ken Pfeuffer.

Details

Liebe Studieninteressierte,

im Rahmen eines Forschungsprojektes untersuchen wir das Interaktionsverhalten mit Smartphones. Dazu suchen wir Teilnehmer für eine kurze Online-Studie (Bearbeitungsdauer: 5 Minuten).

Um an der Studie teilzunehmen, rufen Sie bitte den folgenden Link mit ihrem Smartphone auf:
Online Studie zu Smartphone Interaktion.

Bei Rückfragen wenden Sie sich bitte an Kai Lebruschka.

Besten Dank für die Teilnahme!

Details

Problem Statement

Usable security for virtual and augmented reality systems (VR/AR) is an area that is relatively underexplored. This thesis aims to investigate the feasibility of authentication mechanisms for VR/AR, while considering the usability and security aspects, specifically potential attacks.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR/AR hardware and software
• Get familiar with authentication techniques
• Find and study related literature
• Develop\reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

Problem Statement

Our homes are currently equipped with ubiquitous computing services, be it our smart phones, smart TVs, Alex, or lifelogging devices. The availability of these devices offers novel opportunities for user authentication, as well as raises privacy concerns and potential novel security attacks. This thesis, aims to explore the raised opportunities and challenges from the availability of smart devices in our daily vicinity.

Tasks

• Get familiar with VR/AR hardware and software
• Get familiar with authentication techniques
• Find and study related literature
• Develop / reuse software tracking the body motion and model it in VR
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Preferred (but not necessary) qualification

• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Experience in programming with Unity a plus

Details

Problem Statement and Objective

Touch displays have become an integral part of public and semi-public spaces - for example, in the form of information displays in museums, airports, and Universities but also for ticket vending machines and ATMs. Those displays are interacted with by many different users over the course of the day. However, with the current pandemic situation, people are getting reluctant to touch those displays, as they suspect a potential contamination of the surface by previous users.The main objective of this thesis is to come up with novel user interfaces and interaction concepts to mitigate effects from potentially contaminated surfaces. Examples include but are not limited to adapting the display of content and arrangement of interactive elements based on touch behavior, changing interaction modality, approaches to initiate cleaning the display, as well as psycho-education.

Scope of the Thesis

The aim of this thesis is to create novel interaction concepts for public displays, implement them in the form of prototype applications and test them in user studies. Those studies can focus on performance as well as on human behavior.

Tasks

• Comprehensive survey of related work
• Design and development of a prototype.
• Evaluation of the prototype by means of one (or more) interactive display applications.
• Investigating performance and user behavior.

Requirements

• Programming skills
• Independent scientific working and creativeness
• Experience with user-centered design processes
• Interest in touch surfaces and novel interaction techniques

Details

Description

Shoulder surfing refers to situations where a person observes another person's private interactions with technology (e.g., private messages on a smartphone, or personal identification numbers on ATMs). In this thesis, we will investigate how VR can be used as a platform to study shoulder surfing. In this context, we will explore the effect of audio feedback on behavior in VR, covering both the attacker and the victim.

The objective of this thesis is to obtain a thorough understanding of how audio feedback in Virtual Reality affects human behaviour in the context of shoulder surfing. The student is required to review previous work on shoulder surfing and particularly its prior applications in VR. The thesis requires the design and implementation of a user study in VR.

Tasks

• Comprehensive survey of related work
• Review of relevant research questions in the application area
• Developing and setting up a virtual study environment
• Running a user study in VR
• Analysis, reflection and discussion of the outcomes

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in VR
• Good programming skills
• Nice to have: experience with 3D modeling and development with Unity

Details

We're looking for a practical research student for user research and UI design in the context of an interdisciplinary research project at the intersection of Physics, Biology, and Computer Science. You will be working as part of a team of researchers and students from these domains.

Tasks:

• UI design and information visualization: Employ a user-centered design process to design a touch-based UI for a portable measurement instrument for cell research, including aspects such as information visualization and measurement control.
• User research: Adequately inform the design choices by assessing and considering needs and preferences of a variety of target user groups.
• Prototyping: Create suitable prototypes for the user-centered design process and for presenting the developed designs to various stakeholders.
• A first design prototype and insights from user interviews exist to get you started.

Requirements:

• Interest in interdisciplinary work, innovative technology, and cell research
• Background in human-computer interaction, information visualization, and/or user interface design
• Practical experience with user-centered design processes and UI/UX design methods and tools
• Teamplayer, independent scientific work, creative problem solving

The project is initially offered as an “Einzelpraktikum” for Master students (Media Informatics, MCI) for one or two semesters (6/12 ECTS, respectively).

Interested?

Send your application with transcript of records and examples of your UI design work via email to Dr. Daniel Buschek.

Details

Effizienz ist ein wichtiger Faktor der Usabilityforschung. Im Allgemeinen beschreibt die Effizienz eines Systems den Aufwand, welchen ein Nutzer erbringen muss, um eine bestimmte Aufgabe zu erfüllen. Effizienz wird meist in Zeit gemessen und evaluiert.

Die wissensbasierte Authentifizierung (bspw. PIN) stellt ein Beispiel für eine solche Aufgabe dar. Als Maß der Effizienz dient hier in der Regel die Zeit, welche für die korrekte Eingabe eines Passwortes/PIN benötigt wird. Neue Erkenntnisse deuten jedoch darauf hin, dass es neben der aktiven Eingabe weitere Phasen gibt, welche sowohl die gemessene als auch die gefühlte Effizienz des Mechanismus beeinflussen. Dabei ist neben der reinen Existenz dieser Phasen auch das Verhältnis der Phasen zueinander maßgebend für die User Experience.

In diesem Einzelpraktikum soll der Einfluss der verschiedenen Authentifizierungsphasen auf die Effizienz untersucht werden. Dafür sollen mehrere Modifikationen eines PIN-Eingabesystems entwickelt und im Feldtest studiert werden.

Aufgaben:

1. Literaturrecherche / selbstständiges Aneignen von Fachwissen
2. Ausarbeitung der zu testenden Konzepte (im Team)
3. Entwicklung der Studiensoftware (Android oder iOS)
4. Planung und Durchführung der Nutzerstudie (im Team)
5. Analyse und Aufbereitung der Studienergebnisse

Bei Erfolg des Projektes besteht die Möglichkeit an einer internationalen Publikation mitzuwirken.

Details

Description

This projects purpose is to investigate in building a full body tracking system based on self-made trackers which are usable by the HTC VIVE and its Lighthouses. We want to compare the original HTC VIVE tracker with a varying amount of self-made trackers in order to use it for VR sport analysis.

Tasks

• Building a set of at least 10 tracker based on the enclosed literature
• Implementation of an application for testing purposes
• Compare the existing Tracker with the self-made tracker in terms of usability for VR sport analysis

Preferred qualification

• Experience in hardware and software prototyping
• Experience in C# programming for Unity 3D
• Interest in performing experiments
• Interest in performance enhancement in sports

Suggested Reading

• The HiveTrackers will serve as the foundation for the self-made trackers Tracker foundations
• This project can help to create suitable sensors Sensor foundations

Details

Gaze-based head gestures are a hands-free interaction technique using the occulo-vestibular reflex. A bachelor thesis showed already that this interaction technique works for checking checkboxes and answering dialogs.
This thesis should research whether advanced interaction, such as drag & drop operations, using scrollbars and manipulation of 3D objects, is possible with gaze-based head gestures.

Tasks

• Get familiar with hardware and software
• Find and study related literature
• Develop software supporting the interaction method
• Design a user study
• Conduct a user study
• Do a statistical evaluation
• Write all down in a thesis

Details

Description

Over the past years, cryptocurrencies (e.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum) and their underlying technology, Blockchain, have experienced increased interest and a steadily growing user base. Contrary to transactions in centralized systems, it is hard to foresee the time a transaction needs to complete.

The goal of this thesis is to investigate how the status of cryptocurrency transactions can be “best” displayed to users. How existing cryptocurrency and blockchain solutions display the status of transactions to users? Which information is shown and which temporal metaphors are used? How do (end-) users perceive different methods? And how do different transaction times influence, how users perceive them?

Tasks

• Review of related literature (wait times, loading screens, display of async transaction stati)
• Creation of “Transaction Models” for comparable systems (banking, messaging, cryptocurrencies)
• Analysis how existing systems (e.g. wallets) display transactions status
• Development and prototyping of improved methods to display the transaction status of cryptocurrencies
• Design of a user study and evaluation of the developed methods

Requirements

• Independent thinking and creative problem solving
• Interest in designing and conducting user studies
• Knowledge in the area of human computer interaction
• Web Development Experience (optional)
• Interest in crypto currencies (optional)

Related Work

https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2702428 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2892308 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3232092 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3232086 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3300835 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10447318.2017.1305051 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003687017301485?via%3Dihub https://medium.com/pixelpoint/track-blockchain-transactions-like-a-boss-with-web3-js-c149045ca9bf https://medium.com/mobify-design-team/designing-for-the-appearance-of-speed-aaabc7f568c2 https://uxdesign.cc/what-you-should-know-about-skeleton-screens-a820c45a571a https://www.viget.com/articles/a-bone-to-pick-with-skeleton-screens/

Details

Description

In this project, we would like to explore how VR can be used to enhance Dance experiences. From a performer perspective, the VR setting may be used to further visualize movements for example. From the observer perspective, it would be interesting to see whether these enhancements are viewed simply on a digital screen or through an HMD as well. Can it happen synchronously or only one-after-the-other?

The aim of this thesis is to explore this topic.

Tasks

• Review of related work on performer/observer interactions in digitally enhanced social viewing/entertainment/public art viewing (e.g. festival, theater) situations
• Creating an application that tracks fully body movements of VR user
• Enhancing dance movements with a design space of visualizations
• Evaluating the viewing experience from a performer and observer perspective in a small study
• Analyze the data collected from the studies and build valid conclusions

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in performing arts
• Interest in VR
• Good experience with c# 3D authoring tools (e.g.,Unity)

Details

Description

Many people suffer from smartphone addiction, where they use their smartphones frequently and for long periods at a time without realizing it. One measure of smartphone use is scrolling (e.g., the distance and duration of scrolling the feed on Facebook).

The aim of this project is to investigate ways to visualize and inform the user of the extent of their scrolling, and to encourage behavior change. In particular, we aim to make smartphone users more aware of how much they scroll throughout their day and offer them ways to track their scrolling behavior.

Tasks

• Literature review on smartphone addiction and current solutions to combat it
• Designing and implementing a mobile application that tracks scrolling
• Designing and conducting a user study

Requirements

• Interest in wellbeing and smartphone addiction
• Interest in conducting user studies
• Good programming skills

Details

This project takes place in cooperation with the Glyptothek in Munich and is a follow-up prject to the thesis project

Tangible Interaction with Busts and Statues

. In this follow-up project, we want to augment the relationship between different exhibition pieces.

Tasks:

• Prototyping busts and statues
• Creation of interaction concepts with the prototypes
• Iterative testing and selection of prototypes

Requirements:

• Basic knowledge about interaction concepts.
• Ambition to delve into hardware and software for prototyping.

• Hornecker and Stifter "Learning from interactive museum installations about interaction design for public settings." 2006.
• Nofal et al. "Communicating Built Heritage Information Using Tangible Interaction Approach." 2017.
• Ioannides et al. "Mixed Reality and Gamification for Cultural Heritage." 2017.

Details

Our real, physical environment shows traces everywhere of how we use it. Those traces can serve as memory cues and indicate prior interaction or user behaviors. Hence, they are signs of prior experiences. VR environments or objects currently do not include such traces of use and it is unclear how to represent traces of use in a virtual environment. This disconnects the virtual space from the experiences that we make in it. In this thesis, we want to explore ways to integrate traces of a user experience in VR and the effect thereof.

Tasks:

• Identify prototypes/scenarios/environments from prior work where traces of use would make a difference in the interaction.
• Adapt these prototypes and develop a dynamic and aging VR environment that represents the user experiences and interactions.
• Conduct a user study on this prototype to evaluate its success based on pre-defined measures.

Requirements:

• Experience in either VR programming, C# or 3D modeling.
• Basic knowledge of user research.

Suggested Reading:

• Anotnella Carassa, Francesca Morganti and Maurizio Tirassa. "A situated cognition perspective on presence." 2005.
• Holly Robbins, Elisa Giaccardi and Elvin Karana. "Traces as an Approach to Design for Focal Things and Practices." 2016.
• Tom Fisher. "What we touch, touches us: materials, affects and affordances."2004.

Details

Inhalte

Das bayerische Landesforschungsinstitut fortiss und IBM werden im Rahmen des IBM fortiss Center forAI das Thema Stress-Management für sicherheitskritische Anwendungen erforschen. Dafuür wird einKonzept entwickelt, um Stress bei Einsatzkräften der Feuerwehr zu überwachen und managen. Die Ideen werden prototypisch umgesetzt und präsentiert. Die Workshops und Gespräche während desPraktika können entweder in englischer oder deutscher Sprache gehalten werden.

Bewerbung

Beschreiben Sie kurz Ihre Motivation, relevante Fachkenntnisse, beispielsweise aus früheren Kursen,Jobs und anderen Projekten, die Ihre Fähigkeiten in einem oder mehreren der folgenden Bereichedemonstrieren: Programmierung, Benutzererfahrung, Nutzerstudien, Prototyping.
Senden Sie es anyuanting.liu ät fortiss.org

Details

Description

Mid-air gestures enable new and exciting ways of interacting with technology, especially because devices can be interacted with from a distance. Typically, gesturing follows the pointing metaphor, wherein one or both arms are extended to point towards the device, e.g., a display. However, a persistent problem is the expressive and novel nature of the interaction: users may feel uncomfortable gesturing in places wherein they receive unwanted attention. Additionally, prolonged gesturing can lead to fatigue.

The aim of this project is to investigate new approaches to gestural interaction that could make the interaction less visible and less tiresome. In particular, the aim is to investigate gestures that are carried out by holding the arm against the body, instead of reaching out with the arm.

Tasks

• Designing and implementing the overall logic for on-body gestures
• Implementing a prototype public display application
• Designing and conducting a user study

Requirements

• Interest in novel interaction techniques
• Interest in conducting user studies
• Good programming skills

Details

Description

VR research prominently focuses on making virtual experiences as natural and realistic as possible. However, VR also provides users with capabilities they don't have in the real world, such as observing their surroundings outside of their normal viewpoint.

The aim of this project is to investigate whether enabling VR users to switch between their own and another user's viewport can enhance certain collaborative scenarios, how this affects the user experience, and what potential opportunities and challenges arise from viewport switching.

Tasks

• Literature review: charting existing research on viewport switching and out-of-body experiences
• Design and implementation of one ore more ways to switch between viewports in VR
• Implementation of virtual collaborative tasks
• Design and conduction of a user study

Requirements

• Interest in virtual reality, in particular collaborative and/or social aspects of VR
• Interest in conducting user studies
• Good programming skills
• Prior experience with VR technologies (Unity, SteamVR) is considered an asset

Details

Description

In this project, the student will extend a previous project called GravitySpot (link; video; talk). GravitySpot is a system that guides users to specific spots in front of large interactive displays using cues that implicitly guide users. For example, in case of a display with which users can interact via mid-air gestures, a perfect position to guide users to could be 2-3 meters away from the display, but in case of interaction via eye gaze, this position could be 30-60cm away from the eye tracking device. GravitySpot guides users by showing them on-screen cues that implicitly guide people to the correct position.

In this project, we aim to implement GravitySpot 2.0, which guides multiple users in front of large displays to one or more optimal interaction positions. We attempted to implement GravitySpot 2.0 before. We started by following the same approach adopted in the first version i.e. showing on-screen cues to guide each user in a different way. However, we quickly realized that a prerequisite is to first make sure the user knows which on-screen cue they should follow. This led us to question how users identify themselves on public displays. In our investigation of this problem, we published this work (link; video).

Tasks

• Build on the two previous projects to implement and evaluate GravitySpot 2.0. Taking some points into consideration e.g. the kinds of situations GravitySpot 2.0 should cover.
• Review of previous work on interaction with public displays is necessary.
• Conducting user studies and evaluating the data
• Handling of depth imaging data from a motion sensor (e.g. Kinect)

Requirements

• Good programming skills
• Interest in conducting user studies

Details

Description

Virtual Reality is increasingly being used as a research tool. It is particularly useful in situations, where users should not be put at risk, for example, when testing a novel automotive user interface; or where running a study in the real world is a lot of effort.

At the same time, affective user interfaces, that respond to or evoke certain emotions are becoming increasingly popular. However, it is unclear yet how well emotion elicitation works for different tasks commonly done in virtual reality.

The objective of this thesis is to obtain a thorough understanding the lasting effects of emotions in humans during performing tasks in VR. We look into different tasks in VR, different emotion elicitation methods and how long the emotions last. The thesis requires the design and implementation of a user study to understand how task performance is affected due to emotions in VR. In addition, this work also explores how negative mood elicitation affects task performance.

Tasks

• Comprehensive survey of related work
• Design and development of a prototype
• Evaluation of the prototype and comparison to previous work

Requirements

• Independent scientific work and creative problem solving
• Interest in performing user studies and experiments
• Interest in VR
• Experience with C# 3D authoring tools (e.g.,Unity) is preferred

Details

Generative music systems are becoming more and more relevant nowadays. In the near future Artificial Intelligences will become evenly equal partners in music making scenarios. Therefore we have to find ways to interact with systems that are able to make their own decisions and have their own creative mind. Established communication with human musicians are eye-contact, gestures, verbal expressions.How can we communicate with digital musicians, how can they communicate with humans?

Tasks:

• Development of interaction concepts for the handling of AI/generative systems in a musical context.
• Implementation of a functional prototype that demonstrates the basic concept.
• Conducting a study with students.

Requirements:

• Interest and experience in music theory.
• Experience in programming and hardware-prototyping.
• Ambition to delve into hardware and software.

Suggested Reading:

• Yamaha Artificial Intelligence (AI) Transforms a Dancer into a Pianist
• Mateas, M. (2001). Expressive AI: A hybrid art and science practice. Leonardo, 34(2), 147-153.
• De Mantaras, R. L., & Arcos, J. L. (2002). AI and music: From composition to expressive performance. AI magazine, 23(3), 43.
• Francois, A. R., Chew, E., & Thurmond, D. (2007, June). Visual feedback in performer-machine interaction for musical improvisation. In Proceedings of the 7th international conference on New interfaces for musical expression (pp. 277-280). ACM.

Details

User interfaces facilitate interaction with digital content. Concepts such as "Undo" make it possible to reverse actions that did not have the desired effect. But what would interfaces and the corresponding interactions look like if irreversible actions were central components of interaction design? In this thesis a design exploration should be performed that focusses on materials like paper which affordances lead to actions such as tearing, crumpling, folding, punching holes, etc.. How can familiar concepts such as punch cards or origami help to design intelligible interaction metaphors, that create commitment to the actions we as users perform with technology? What impact will such concepts have on prospective actions?

Tasks:

• Concept Development.
• Design Experimentations.
• Prototyping.
• Evaluation in form of a User Study.

Requirements:

• Prototyping Experience.
• Interest in Design and UX Design.

Suggested Reading:

• Zimmerman, John, Jodi Forlizzi, and Shelley Evenson. "Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI." Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, 2007.
• Auger, James. "Speculative design: crafting the speculation." Digital Creativity 24.1 (2013): 11-35.
• Cox, Anna L., et al. "Design frictions for mindful interactions: The case for microboundaries." Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2016.

Details

Group behavior visualization in virtual communication.
Details

Spatial behavior as non-verbal channel in virtual communication.
For detailed information have a look at » my website
Details

Thanks to smartphones, we are always reachable and easily distractible. The first makes it hard for us to detach - from work ("just this one email, then I'm done for today"), pressure from friends and family ("why didn't you answer my message within 5 minutes?"), or the device itself ("what, half an hour passed whereas I just wanted to see what time it was"). On the other hand, once we are settled in, the latter makes it hard for us to focus - on a working task, a conversation, or our own imagination.Within this thesis, we want to develop and evaluate whether setting up a particular smartphone environment, i.e., customising the smartphone screen and functionality (wallpaper, color scheme, app layout, etc.) improves our focus and simultaneously encourages detachment.

Tasks:

• (Extensive) Literature review on smartphone solutions to support focus and detachment
• Enhancement of an existing Android launcher-based application with the findings from 1)
• Design and execution of a lab- and/or field study to evaluate the effect of the solution developed in 2)
• Analysis & discussion of the study results

Requirements: Very good programming skills with Android. A successful project can result in a submission to a renowned international conference/journal.
Details

Description

Developing an Android app for predicting personality traits via smartphone usage

In the PhoneStudy project, an interdisciplinary team consisting of psychologists, statisticians, and computer scientists develop an Android app, which tracks and logs the user’s smartphone behaviour to predict personality traits. For example, we track the number of users’ calls, sms, and app usage, which might predict how extraverted the user is. The app will be distributed among participants in spring 2018, which will then use the app for several months. There are several tasks for media informatics students in this project (cf. below), from which you can choose. Please contact me when you are interested in the project and will give you more details.

Tasks

You can choose between different tasks:

• Configuring and working on the server, its scalability and stability, as well as the data base (MariaDB)
• Working on the internal web based front end of the server, which depicts the current status of participants and logged data
• Further develop the app: integrating new features and fixing current bug
• Quality management: Developing automatic testing scripts

Minimum requirements

• Interested in interdisciplinary projects
• High communication skills, especially willing to communicate interdisciplinary
• Able to work independently
• Previous experience with server configuration, (Android) app development, web development, data bases (depending on the chosen task)
• High frustration tolerance

Details

Machine Learning is a new paradigm for writing software where not one defined algorithm dictates the behaviour but instead data determines and changes how the software operates.Naturally, a different development paradigm means that we write different code.

GitHub as the platform for open source projects offers a diverse range of software repositories, traditional and using Machine Learning. In this thesis you will analyze publicly available repositories to determine how exactly Machine Learning code differs from more traditional code.

You will:

• Perform a literature review
• Collect and classify a sample of GitHub repositories that represent Machine Learning and traditional software development
• Compare what parts of the underlying programming language is used more or less for either
• Summarize your findings in a thesis and presenting them to an audience
• (Optional) co-writing a research paper

You need:

• Strong communication skills in english
• Good knowledge of data processing / extraction
• General knowledge of formal languages, parsing, etc.

Details